I haven’t received my US Airways Dividend Miles e-statement for March yet, but Loyalty Lobby received his and notes the following paragraph: Next month, we’ll reach the next milestone on our path to integration by bringing Dividend Miles into the American Airlines AAdvantage® program. We’ll transfer your mileage balance and elite-qualifying activity into your new (or existing) AAdvantage account. When the 2015 program and details of how the US Airways and American programs would be combined were released in October, we were told the combination would happen during the second quarter of 2015. At the time I wrote, They haven’t set a target date, and there’s lots of IT work to do, but they sounded optimistic to me about hitting their deadlines on the early, rather than late, side of the calendar. Throughout I’ve been…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for March 2015.
The Best Airlines and Airports… and the Worst. Plus Starwood Hotels You Didn’t Know Changed Rewards Category
News and notes from around the interweb: Even ‘Airlines 4 America’ the airline industry lobby group is unwilling to sign onto the United/Delta/American complaint about the three large Gulf airlines. Nate Silver takes his statistical prowess to airline schedules and performance. He finds that US Airways, Alaska, and Virgin America are operationally better than Delta (which is of course better than United and American), and that the New York area airports and Chicago O’Hare are unsurprisingly quite awful. Some Starwood hotels changed categories — or didn’t — this week contrary to what had previously been announced. Ryanair to fly to Spain’s ‘Ghost Airport’ Promo code USMRIOT takes 20% off Dallas-originating and 15% off other US-originating itineraries on Emirates for booking through March 31 and travel through May 15. (HT: S.) Video of slides deploying on…
TSA Arrests Man for Too Many Credit Cards
The TSA has never caught a terrorist. But they’ve nabbed their first card churner going through a checkpoint in Fort Lauderdale prior to boarding a Delta flight for New York. During a physical search of the bag, a security screener discovered four stacks of credit cards hidden inside four different sneakers on the bag’s bottom, the report said. The screener also noticed several credit cards were blank. The Broward Sheriff’s Office responded and found 136 blank credit cards displaying logos of various banks, and 62 credit cards with two different listed account holders and various account numbers, the report said. At first the man claimed “no knowledge of how the credit cards were in his duffel bag” (the ‘Shaggy defense‘). Then he claimed a cousin he couldn’t identify paid him $200 to bring the cards…
Cathay Pacific Will Introduce a New Business Class Seat Next Year
Cathay Pacific is an American AAdvantage partner (and a member of oneworld) and flies from New York JFK, Newark, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto and Vancouver to Hong Kong and of course beyond. I love their first class product, and redeem for it when I can. But their business class is excellent. It’s a similar seat to what US Airways pioneered, American has in their new 777s, and Delta flies to Asia and Tel Aviv. I especially like the two-row ‘mini cabin’ on the Cathay Pacific 777. Their business class of course is four seats abreast on the 777, with all aisle access. It’s the ‘reverse herringbone’ style seat, which is my absolute favorite business class seat. Australian Business Traveller reports that Cathay Pacific will come out with a new version of the seat…
HOT FARE: From $528 for Air France PREMIUM ECONOMY US – Istanbul Roundtrip
The Flight Deal scoops a deal about Air France premium economy for under $600 roundtrip. Premium economy can often be thought of as similar to domestic first class, so a real step up from coach, and for less than the price of coach. This should be a $2500 – $3000 roundtrip ticket. And yet I don’t think it’s a mistake, it appears to be focused on United hubs. Washington Dulles and Chicago are available from $528, Houston and other United hubs are reportedly available for a little bit more. Take your outbound flight between March 28th and May 15th or between August 24 and October 25. Travel outbound Sunday through Wednesday Return Monday through Thursday 3 day advance purchase required You can earn full redeemable miles with Delta or Alaska on this fare. This should…
More Tourists Behaving Badly: Russian Porn Illegally Filmed at Giza Pyramids
First we have tourists arrested for taking photos inside Cambodian temples. Then California women were caught scratching their initials into the Colosseum in Rome. As though it wasn’t becoming hard enough for criticizing the destruction of historical artifacts in the name of smashing idols by ISIS… …Egyptian authorities are now investigating “how tourists came to film a pornographic video at the site of the Giza pyramids and Sphinx.” What’s more, the Russian porn star doesn’t even seem to appreciate the historical significance of the sites, and complains about her tour instead. The actress is seen complaining constantly into the camera about the scenery, the locals, the souvenirs – just about everything – before flashing parts of her body, according to viewers. Whether or not revelations of this film will lead to the storming of a…
How to Maximize Buffets, Lawsuit Over Airport Bottled Water, and Inflight Falcons for Lufthansa First Class Passengers
News and notes from around the interweb: How to maximize brunch Will the Amtrak MasterCard come back… as a Chase Visa or a Citibank MasterCard? Aerolineas Argentinas and Garuda Indonesia awards are now bookable online with Delta miles. Delta has made strong efforts bringing more partners online over the past couple of months. Aerolineas Argentinas isn’t an airline I much want to fly, but it can get you to South America. While Garuda Indonesia is a worthy carrier for intra-Asia flying, it won’t be used often by Americans. Alaska Airlines is offering double miles on their new Seattle – New York JFK route Lufthansa first class passengers will soon be able to bring falcons onboard. No, really, that’s not going to happen. (HT: Paul H.) The high cost of buying bottled water in airports is…
US Airways Elites to Get Free 500 Mile Upgrade Certificates on American
When the American and US Airways frequent flyer programs combine soon, we’re going to basically get the American program — which means that upgrades will no longer be ‘complimentary’ to all US Airways elite members. Instead: Executive Platinums (100,000 mile flyers) will get complimentary upgrades on all flights, as they do now. All elites get complimentary upgrades on flights of 500 miles or less Golds (25,000 mile flyers) and Platinums (50,000 mile flyers) will use 500 mile e-upgrade certificates. This is the American model, and US Airways elites will transition to it. The two frequent flyer programs will combine long before the airlines themselves combine. I expect that US Airways flights will still offer complimentary upgrades until the reservation systems are merged late in the year. So the 500 mile upgrade system will apply to…
How Mistake Airfares Are Handled When the DOT Isn’t Involved…
A month ago flights originating in the UK were pricing in Danish Kroner at a price that’s pennies on the dollar what they normally run. United voided these tickets. The Department of Transportation received thousands of complaints, apparently, and they sided with United. I think it was the right moral result, but I also believe it was inconsistent with DOT rules, and they went through some significant backflips in order to get the result they clearly wanted. While the DOT promulgated a rule requiring airlines to honor tickets that have been purchased regardless of price, they don’t like that airlines have to honor tickets regardless of price — they want consumers unaware of a glitch to have tickets honored, but don’t want consumers to be able to take advantage when they’re aware of glitches. DOT…
The Greek Government Wants Tourists to Get Wired and Inform on Tax Cheats
The Greek solution to mass scale tax evasion is to build a surveillance state, while outsourcing the actual surveillance to tourists. If you’re a tourist in Greece, there are so many things to do: visit the Acropolis, admire the architecture in Santorini and maybe try to catch some local tax cheats. No, really. The Financial Times published a letter that Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis sent to Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem. Varoufakis suggested that “students, housekeepers and even tourists” would get paid by the hour if they were willing to get wired and go more-or-less undercover, posing as customers and trying to catch tax evaders in the act. This is apparently part of the Greek government’s effort to make a credible commitment at reform. Talk of a ‘primary surplus’ is no longer relevant with Greek…
